Well, the Silmarillion did take Tolkien most of his life to write, and in fact, wasn't actually a completed work, but was compiled amd published after his death by his son, I believe. It's not so much a singular piece of work as a career-spanning amalgamation of such creativity and scope, such detailed creative genius, as to merit the Number One place, if only as a nod to it's providing all the history and culture without which the later writings could not exist. I think it's an entity unto itself, really, and since was (as I already mentioned) a post-mortem compilation of his life's work, isn't really in the same category as the novels. They are all so great, though. And so much of later writers'/filmmakers' sci-fi, fantasy, legends, etc that have been written/published/released after the Middle Earth books were published are derivative of the concepts he set forth in those books, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy all are deserving of the respect they garner.

i forget if i liked donattello or raph better. i think in the cartoon i liked raphael cos he was funny, but in the first nintendo game, i liked donatello cos he had the big stick that could magically kill bad guys above you-even if a floor was in between you.....

and then you had to go in those swimming levels with the electric coral and jellyfish-What was that all about anyway!??!?!??!?!?!?!??!

how about top 4 TMNT video games while we are at it:

1. TMNT: the arcade game
2. TMNT for NES
3. TMNT II for NES
4. TMNT: turtles in time-i seriously think that was one...lame. or was it just a movie. i always hated those live action movies.........except for the vanilla ice ninja rap song